architects were local worthies called Brevill and Bailey who’d designed many of Nottingham’s monuments and grand municipal buildings. Me and my wife Rosie, we’d bought the tower, converted very nicely into comfortable accommodation, and one day I was going to repair the clock in the tower. What else? oh yes, a man called Henry Wass had died during the construction of the church, he’d fallen from the scaffolding and...
At this, the young man glanced up at me, as though he’d found the angle he needed to make something of his story, something gratuitously sensational to bring it alive. For a moment I thought he was going to hurry outside with his camera, to photograph the spot where the skull of the unfortunate man might have smashed on the pavement.
‘The books?’ I quickly went on. And as I strolled from shelf to shelf, with my eyes half-closed for mysterious effect, I murmured the names like a spell, the names of the immortals, forever and unforgettably enshrined in the pantheon... ‘Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Conan Doyle, MR James... Wilde, Dickens, de Quincy, Rider Haggard...’ and was surprised when I opened my eyes and caught a glimmer of impatience on the young man’s face, a surreptitious peek at his watch. ‘And of course, the modern masters of the genre, King and Koontz, Barker and Bradbury and Blatty and er...’
He closed his notebook very gently. He screwed his face into a painfully apologetic frown and stood up.
‘Sorry, no offence but... but can’t I find all of these books in all of the bookshops in town? I mean, I don’t even have to go into Nottingham, I can get all of them, the so-called classics, in Long Eaton and Beeston and Ilkeston. I can rummage in any of the charity shops and find a tattered old copy of Frankenstein or Dracula or Turn of the Screw or Jekyll and Hyde or whatever. And the newer stuff, in Smiths and Waterstones, the big outlets. Can’t I?’
He paused, and his earnest, journalistic face lit into a boyish smile, alive with excitement.
‘Poe,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that why I’ve come to talk to you? Show me the tooth.’
I SWITCHED ON the lamp, bent it over the velveteen table and stood back. There was a gust of wind outside, or else a bus or a truck had just gone by, because all three of us turned at a sudden skittering sound in the hallway and a flurry of leaves blew in.
He bent over the display I’d so carefully set up. Because the room was so dim and the night outside seemed to wrap itself so meanly, so grimly around the church, the velvet box and its bed of white satin shone all the brighter.
And the tooth.
Joe Blakesley, cub-reporter from the Nottingham Evening Post, leaned close and he stared. And he stared. He held his breath and he stared. When he spoke, his voice was so quiet, not even a whisper, hardly a gasp, barely a breath, that it was almost lost in the flutter of the flames and the stirring of autumn leaves across the floor.
‘How wonderful. How marvellous. Oh God, dentem puer , from the mouth of Edgar Allan Poe...’ His voice was lost, in a puff of smoke from the blazing Birchwood, in the holiness of the hiss of resin.
Not wanting to disturb his reverie, but seizing the moment to give him the details he might need for his article, I stood behind him and recited the information I’d gleaned from the precious handwritten slip of paper. He nodded and nodded, hardly looking up from the tooth, as if to indicate he knew already that Poe had spent a few years of his boyhood in England, he knew the names, the facts, he’d done his homework about the Manor House School and Dr Barnsby and... and when I mentioned where the tooth had come from, the name of Mr. Heap seemed to freeze him for a second, he inhaled sharply as if by doing so he would commit the name to his memory.
And what was Chloe doing? Oh lord, heaven forbid I should ignore her or worst of all neglect her for a precious millisecond, she was standing beside him on tip-toe and
At this, the young man glanced up at me, as though he’d found the angle he needed to make something of his story, something gratuitously sensational to bring it alive. For a moment I thought he was going to hurry outside with his camera, to photograph the spot where the skull of the unfortunate man might have smashed on the pavement.
‘The books?’ I quickly went on. And as I strolled from shelf to shelf, with my eyes half-closed for mysterious effect, I murmured the names like a spell, the names of the immortals, forever and unforgettably enshrined in the pantheon... ‘Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Conan Doyle, MR James... Wilde, Dickens, de Quincy, Rider Haggard...’ and was surprised when I opened my eyes and caught a glimmer of impatience on the young man’s face, a surreptitious peek at his watch. ‘And of course, the modern masters of the genre, King and Koontz, Barker and Bradbury and Blatty and er...’
He closed his notebook very gently. He screwed his face into a painfully apologetic frown and stood up.
‘Sorry, no offence but... but can’t I find all of these books in all of the bookshops in town? I mean, I don’t even have to go into Nottingham, I can get all of them, the so-called classics, in Long Eaton and Beeston and Ilkeston. I can rummage in any of the charity shops and find a tattered old copy of Frankenstein or Dracula or Turn of the Screw or Jekyll and Hyde or whatever. And the newer stuff, in Smiths and Waterstones, the big outlets. Can’t I?’
He paused, and his earnest, journalistic face lit into a boyish smile, alive with excitement.
‘Poe,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that why I’ve come to talk to you? Show me the tooth.’
I SWITCHED ON the lamp, bent it over the velveteen table and stood back. There was a gust of wind outside, or else a bus or a truck had just gone by, because all three of us turned at a sudden skittering sound in the hallway and a flurry of leaves blew in.
He bent over the display I’d so carefully set up. Because the room was so dim and the night outside seemed to wrap itself so meanly, so grimly around the church, the velvet box and its bed of white satin shone all the brighter.
And the tooth.
Joe Blakesley, cub-reporter from the Nottingham Evening Post, leaned close and he stared. And he stared. He held his breath and he stared. When he spoke, his voice was so quiet, not even a whisper, hardly a gasp, barely a breath, that it was almost lost in the flutter of the flames and the stirring of autumn leaves across the floor.
‘How wonderful. How marvellous. Oh God, dentem puer , from the mouth of Edgar Allan Poe...’ His voice was lost, in a puff of smoke from the blazing Birchwood, in the holiness of the hiss of resin.
Not wanting to disturb his reverie, but seizing the moment to give him the details he might need for his article, I stood behind him and recited the information I’d gleaned from the precious handwritten slip of paper. He nodded and nodded, hardly looking up from the tooth, as if to indicate he knew already that Poe had spent a few years of his boyhood in England, he knew the names, the facts, he’d done his homework about the Manor House School and Dr Barnsby and... and when I mentioned where the tooth had come from, the name of Mr. Heap seemed to freeze him for a second, he inhaled sharply as if by doing so he would commit the name to his memory.
And what was Chloe doing? Oh lord, heaven forbid I should ignore her or worst of all neglect her for a precious millisecond, she was standing beside him on tip-toe and
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